Movie Defense Force: Mortal Kombat

[SimGrave]

So far so good. I enjoy this new show by Jim.

Which is good, cause the more it goes, the less I enjoy Escape to the Movies.
The reason being, Jim critics (positively) movies on what they are. Not what they could have been or what the represent to the industry.
Bob on the other, will critic movies (positively) on how the movie fits within the industry, what is the back story behind the movie, or how faithful it was to a random mythology no one cares about.
It's good to be curious about these things, but bottom line... you should be able to appreciate a movie as a whole without having to dig info to make you understand why it's good. But most people don't go that far and they shouldn't have to.
Plus he tends to forget who the movies are aimed for when it comes to movies not targeted to him.

About MK... the music was stellar and became a classic (yeah, others mentioned it).
I just wish they would they would have put more special moves in the combats.
When they did it, it felt like a one trick thing and a bit cheese... mostly fan service.
I would have appreciated that their combat would have been more influences by their special moves...
Instead of being regular Kung Fu... A bit more over the top violence ALA Riki-Oh could've been cool too!!

 

[Elijah Newton]

Completely agree with you jim. But this movie did not need defending. Mortal Kombat 2 however...

Seconded. And the weird thing for me is (mind you I haven't seen either in a while) I can't tell you why MK2 was measurably worse. It's not like the f/x in the first one were great (though I still love that set for the Scorpion / Cage fight) but for some reason the sequel's were jarringly bad. There's probably other stuff I've blocked from my memory... I have a sneaking suspcion there were giant, American-gladiator style balls they rolled through tunnels in.

That wasn't really a thing, was it? *wince* Oh god, I think it was.

 

[el_kabong]

I disagree with Jim on only one, extremely crucial, point. The fight scenes are not great. There are some great fight scenes in there, but they are peppered with really sloppily done work and lackluster martial performances.

Spoiler: Like this fight.

From what I've seen, the fights in which the film's choreographer (Robin Shou, who plays Liu Kang) is a participant are the most well-paced and thought out. The others...not so much.

 

[Rangerboy87]

There are people that thought this movie was bad? Pah. I always loved it.

I think it disappointed some. It got really hyped and looked awesome in trailers, but the end results was a disappointment for some. It was mostly being PG-13, so no gore like the games. Of course MK:Annihilation made the first one look like Casablanca.

I dunno. I liked Mortal Kombat 2 more.

You are definitely in the minority there. Annihilation tried way too hard to be serious. Plus it made the Street Fighter mistake: "Let's get every single character in this movie, even if it's just 5 seconds, so we can pander the fanboys."

Sterling forgot one of the greatest things about the MK movie!

Absolutely! Shame on you Jim for leaving out the music or the shout "MORTAL KOMBAT!!!!"

 

[Lunar Templar]

o.0

wait... what? people conciser this a 'bad movie'? since when? sure it might not have been a 'great' movie but it was always 'good', cheesy sure, but still good

 

[Frank_Sinatra_]

I actually really like this movie and the sequel. Yeah they're garbage, but goddammit they're trying.

 

[Verkula]

I love the scene where Sub-Zero walks down the stairs, it gives me....CHILLS.


Yeah, this one doesnt need defending, its the best video game movie ever made("cheesy" is not a bad thing when done right), and Annihilation is the best comedy ever made.

 

[Soxafloppin]

Yea I loved this movie. I can forgive its shortcomings such as

- Scorpions Vagina hand
- The Fact that the most bad ass character ever Sub-Zero died by having a bucket of water thrown at him.
- Christopher Lambert barely being able to speak.

because its just corny fun, and Jonny Cage punching Goro in the dick is the greatest movie moment of all time.

 

[MorganL4]

Sterling forgot one of the greatest things about the MK movie!

Dude it is awesome! Your avatar seems to be rocking out to the song

But yeah, this is one hammy B movie that I can respect..... It made sense within the universe, even if that universe makes no sense anywhere else.

 

[shintakie10]

o.0

wait... what? people conciser this a 'bad movie'? since when? sure it might not have been a 'great' movie but it was always 'good', cheesy sure, but still good

I believe Moviebob held it up as an example of the bad kind of corny.

 

[Lunar Templar]

o.0

wait... what? people conciser this a 'bad movie'? since when? sure it might not have been a 'great' movie but it was always 'good', cheesy sure, but still good

I believe Moviebob held it up as an example of the bad kind of corny.

I don't remember this. did he say it here or some where else?

not that it matters MK is still one of the best 'movie based on a game' out there.

 

[Megacherv]

I have to argue one point, the best video game movie ever is Postal

 

[Callate]

I'm not too proud to admit that I quite enjoyed Mortal Kombat when it came out. It's special effects weren't actually bad for the time, the action was pretty well played, the script made a certain amount of sense (at least, as much as it could within the framework it was given to work with), and if some of the performances may have been over-the-top, no one was "phoning it in" either. No one seemed to think it was "beneath" them to be doing the movie they were doing.

It was the fight-scene packed, techno-soundtracked movie my nineteen-year-old self was gunning to see; I can hardly fault it for that.

Pity about Annihilation, though...

 

[malestrithe]

Wrong. Prince of Persia is just as faithful to its source material.

 

[Doctor Proctor]

What helps this movie was that it was directed by Paul Anderson, he of Resident Evil and AvP notoriety, and more importantly, it was produced by True Lies producer Larry Kasanoff. Put these two together and you have fidelity to source material and having fun with an obviously cheesy premise.

In the commentary track on one of the Resident Evil movies Paul actually talks about how this movie taught him a LOT about how to do a video game movie. Basically, early in production Scorpion and Sub-Zero were written to basically be buddies...which kind of caused a ****storm when it was shown to fans.

Needless to say, Paul removed that bit from the film and started to look at the production differently. At the time, Hollywood was making garbage like the SMB movie where they just used the game essentially as the springboard for an original story that was a radical redesign of the original property. Paul decided to instead stay as true to the source as he could reasonably do and hoped that fans would embrace the film because of that...which many did!

Sidenote: Believe it or not, he actually applies some of that philosophy to the Res Evil movies. They're not *direct* adaptations like Mortal Kombat was, and instead exist more as side stories. For example, in Res Evil: Apocalypse (2nd movie) he was getting pressure to add in "Fast Zombies" (28 Days Later was a big hit at the time) in order to sort of up the ante. He didn't end up doing that in the film, basically because there were no fast zombies in the Res Evil series at the time. He did, however, add in the Nemesis and certain scenes that were heavily influenced by Code Veronica.

In Res Evil: Extinction (3rd movie) though, faster moving zombies had shown up in the game universe, which is why they were added to the film in the Las Vegas scene. In this way (at least through Extinction, not sure how the latter ones track according to the games) he was basically trying to ensure that while there wasn't a *strict* continuity in the way of Mortal Kombat (such as making a movie about following Leon Kennedy through the events of Res Evil 2), their two stories would be parallel and made up of the same basic building blocks.

Basically, say what you will about the quality of Paul Anderson's films, but I think that he served an important role in showing that creating a movie about a video game could actually WORK when you try to stay faithful to the source material. Hopefully more people will follow his example and we'll keep getting better quality adaptations in the future.

 

[franksands]

Sterling forgot one of the greatest things about the MK movie!

Man, I had completely forgot about that song! It really is great, I think I had the cd with the OST for this movie

 

[LadyRhian]

I love Mortal Kombat. I actually purchased the DVD long before I even *had* a DVD player. Yes, Raiden doesn't do much fighting. but the rest of the stuff was just too good in my opinion. The second one suffered from too many characters, but at least it had actors who could do their own fighting without relying on body doubles. Linden Ashby was set to come back as Johnny Cage before he realized he'd only be in the movie for, like 5 to 7 minutes! Only Robin Shou and Talisa Soto reprised their roles, and the guy who played Shao Khan was Bloody effing awful! Yes, I know he played the Brujah Clan Leader, Eddie, on Kindred: The Embraced, and he has a very powerful physique, but he's not in the least oriental (as someone named Shao Khan probably should be), and he spent the entire movie wearing that Godawful Helmet so he could only emote with his voice and body language and not his face.

I'll confess- I was never interested in the game, but the movie was great fun. And the second movie, I didn't know who half of those characters were supposed to be, except Jax was Sonya's Partner, and the robot ninja guy was Noob Saibot, who was named after the two guys who created the game. Oh, and Sheeva (four armed girl) was related to Goro from the first movie... somehow. And they were half Dragon or something. I have both movies on DVD. The martial arts fighting in the second movie seemed to be slightly better from the main characters, but the rest of the movie was so bad and silly and the fights so forgettable, it didn't matter much.

 

[Shjade]

I'm kinda surprised you did this movie and not the sequel.

Probably because the sequel is genuinely terrible.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

I love the Mortal Kombat movie.

It's probably one of my favorite movies ever and I watched that movie a lot growing up. The soundtrack was the best thing that ever came out from that movie, and the soundtrack was the only thing I liked about the second one. I remember there being a cartoon too, and I remember liking it, but then again, the memory can be a fickle and traitorous thing.

I also remember that when I used to do Taekwondo my instructor used to play that soundtrack when we were warming up. Best music ever for that.